


Pietà

by fernlyan_epho



Category: Dune - All Media Types, Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Genre: Angst, Gen, death of a child, guys this is dark, it's just a conversation but it's dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28447278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fernlyan_epho/pseuds/fernlyan_epho
Summary: As Emperor Paul Atreides organizes his Imperium, he visits Feyd-Rautha's mother with a request, and gets a conversation he didn't plan for.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Pietà

**Author's Note:**

> I've borrowed the name Emmi Rabban from the greater Duniverse but I haven't read anything not written by Frank. Thus, all my speculations work well enough with the information in the appendices of Dune, but I have no idea about the prequels etc., so if that's your thing, you might not like this. Sorry!
> 
> General content warning for dealing with grief and the murder of children. It's not graphic description or anything but it's rather dark, so be mindful if this will upset you!

It was windier than he anticipated—or rather, he felt the wind more acutely than he anticipated—and so the young man wrapped his coat around himself tighter, and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. The clouds to the northeast showed signs of rain, and his new boots were beginning to hurt, and he wondered if it would have been better to have taken a groundcar. But he had precisely known each of these details when he set out this morning from the spaceport south of here, and he had made the decision to walk. It had been the correct one.

The townsfolk regarded him curiously, pausing when they could, as they rushed to complete the day’s tasks before the storm. Strangers were not uncommon, given the proximity of the spaceport from which their agricultural product shipped, but they still were strangers. It was clear this man didn’t belong, from the shine of his boots to the cut of his hair to the intensity with which he walked to his destination. If he had stopped to ask directions, they would have been even more surprised by his eyes—the blue-within-blue which marked the spice addiction. To them, it would be a mark of obscene wealth; in these parts, the amount he consumed in a week would buy upwards of three farms.

While the townsfolk wondered at his business, they did not wonder at his destination. There was only one place he could be heading.

The manor house sat on a hill to the north, a looming presence of dark brick and drawn curtains. The land upon which it sat was arable but uncultivated, which the townsfolk largely regarded as sin: waste of land, prodigality of time, and—perhaps most affronting—a blatant declaration of complete uninterest in participating in town life. The mistress of the house was never at tilling, planting, or harvest. Indeed, she was hardly ever seen, always sending mute servants for the little business she might have in town.

Sometimes she had been seen at a distance, taking brief walks through her property, moving slowly, dark as her own shadow. There was an aristocratic way about her which made some of the townsfolk claim she was the old dowager countess, exiled by her brutish son, but there were fewer who believed this than those who claimed she was a ghost. Most likely she was a spinster heiress of a whale fur tycoon, or a black-sheep daughter of a minor house. What she certainly was was an object of interest in what would otherwise be a rather bleak town. Everyone had their own theories, and the presence of the stranger opened up new possibilities for speculation.

The clouds shifted into place behind the house, and the young man shivered with the recognition of prescience. The assurance that this was correct did not bring any pleasantness to his business here. He hurried up the hill and to the door before the rain began, which is why he had not brought an umbrella. He knocked firmly and waited for the servant to answer.

She was perhaps nine or ten, straight black hair tied severely at the top of her neck and dressed in what he surmised was an old uniform dress. He had only seen such pleated sleeves in photographs from his father’s childhood, and he had only seen that particular blue on flags over the battlefield. She looked at him expectantly, and he wondered what sort of training she had received, that allowed her to look so daringly at her emperor. Perhaps she simply did not recognize him. 

“I am here to see the Lady Rabban,” he said. “She may or may not be expecting me.”

The servant, whose eyes had never left his face, nodded curtly and stepped to the side to let him in. She held out her arms, almost demandingly, and he begrudgingly handed her his coat. It was chilly, despite being out of the wind. She took it and disappeared down a hallway.

He did not wait for her return. Brushing his boots on the mat, he then walked past the stairs and the parlor to a set of double doors. One was slightly open. He stepped inside.

She was standing on the far end of the large room, in front of the fire, back to him. She was dressed top-to-toe in black, including a thin netted veil over her dark hair. There was a severity in her posture which was familiar to him; he had seen his own mother adopt such a posture when she wanted you to know she was upset. He wondered how long this woman had been standing like this.

She was gazing up at a grand portrait above the mantle. It didn’t quite fit right, indicating it had been commissioned for a much bigger house. It depicted a family: a large patriarch in the regalia of a count, his adult son looking like a carbon copy, and his wife, short but steady, a round face and a full figure. In her arms she held a small boy, no more than a year old, dark curls and round, chubby cheeks. He was the only one smiling.

“So you are the man who killed my son,” she said.

He was glad she still faced away; at the sound of her voice, he was presented with a flash of vision: his own mother standing strictly at a window, back to a messenger. He blinked twice to clear his sight. “Yes.”

“And you have come here to offer me something which I will refuse.”

“Yes.”

She turned to face him, and he saw how well the artist had rendered her. In her exile, she had grown a little thin, and beneath the netting of her veil, her hair had flecks of grey, but the expression was the same: a practiced neutrality placed carefully over enduring agony. “Very well. Let us do this properly, then. There are those of us who appreciate the old customs.”

She walked quickly past him into the hallway and led him to the parlor. The walls were a dark blue, as was the tablecloth over the small table. There was a harpsichord in the corner, covered in cloth, and a baliset on the wall, collecting dust. She drew back the curtains and called in a few glowglobes, but with the storm picking up, it was hardly bright. She sat on a stiff-backed chair and gestured for him to do the same.

“Your hair is not suited to rain, is it?”

He resisted the urge to finger-comb, seeing her remark for what it was: an attempt to gage just how much of a child her new emperor was. “It has been many years since I have seen rain.”

“But you were not born on Arrakis. Were you so young on Caladan that your mother still combed your hair?”

He struggled to find the purpose of pursuing this, besides frustrating him. Did she really mean only to demean him? To remind him of his youth? Or the status of his mother? Or merely to be vicious where she could be? Though not Harkonnen-born, she had been in their House for more than fifty years. What did that make her?

“I apologize if my hair offends, Lady Rabban,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she replied. “How could the hair of the Emperor offend?”

She pressed a button and a few moments later the servant girl reappeared. The lady made a series of hand-signs which he did not recognize. The girl nodded and vanished.

“I always buy them deaf-mute,” she said in explanation. “I do not particularly like to be heard.”

“Is she your only companion?” he asked.

“I have no companions,” she replied. “But there is a couple who tend the grounds, to answer what you meant to ask.”

He couldn’t help but feel mocked again. It was an unfamiliar feeling. He had other-memories of schoolchildren smacked for incorrect answers, but couldn’t make sense of them. He thought it to be useless cruelty.

They waited in silence until the tea was brought on a silver plate. The set had gilded edges, and was painted elaborately with flowers and birds native to Lankiveil, though he noticed some places where the color was chipped or fading. The servant poured three cups, downed her own, and when a minute passed, proving it safe, she took her leave again.

“I could never be sure that my exile would be sufficient for my dear Glossu,” she explained, with something approaching a smile. “Poor thing would kill me only to pitch a fit when he realized he could no longer stop by for tea.”

“Did he stop by often?”

“Oh, yes,” she stirred some more sugar in her tea. “He had a lot to say about the Baron and his twitchy little mentat. And however stupid he may have been, he knew I was the only one he could say such things to. Always ready to run home to mother, dear Glossu.”

“and Feyd-Rautha?”

She swallowed and lifted her teacup. “Shall we?”

He mirrored the gesture. “Let the proceedings begin.”

They each took a sip and placed their cups back down. He began:

“Lady Emmi Rabban, Dowager Countess of Lankiveil.”

“Imperial Majesty, Padishah Emperor Paul Atreides, Duke of Caladan and of Arrakis.”

“You have honored me with your hospitality. Will you honor me with your fealty?”

“You have enjoyed my hearth and my tea. What would you enjoy of my fealty?”

This was the end of the scripted portion. The young man deliberately took a sip of his tea as the rain beat harder against the windows. If she took the intended slight, it wasn’t apparent.

“The fief of Lankiveil is in need of a liege lord. Indeed, so is the fief of Giedi Prime.” His voice shifted, to an affected casual tone. There was nothing casual in the way he sat, spine straight, both feet on the floor. There was nothing casual in the implied question.

“And you are in need of a puppet.” She said this with a kind of venom, which he ignored.

“I am in need of a vassal.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“All lords need vassals. But to the question you meant to ask, it is the late Baron’s fault. As I’m sure you know, _dear_ Glossu was torn apart by the masses pushed to breaking point by his implementation of old Vladimir’s policies. I cannot be blamed for that, Lady Rabban.”

Having lost this skirmish, she did not immediately reply, taking a cue from her guest and sipping her tea.

“Why should I accept your offer, Atreides?” It was her turn to affect nonchalance. “I know why you need me, of course. I am not Harkonnen enough to be subject to kanly, but Harkonnen enough to be the logical choice for succession, as well as a pretty piece for your newly-assembled cabinet. But I am an old woman grown frail and useless in exile. What could make me interested in any of your gifts?”

“You sell yourself short, Lady Rabban. You have survived more transfers of power than my warmaster. Could anyone other than yourself revive House Harkonnen? Make it known for something other than its own ruinous habits?”

“You misunderstand.” She placed her teacup down with enough force to rattle the tray. “Why should I accept _your_ offer, Atreides?”

She did not raise her voice, but he froze as if she had shouted. Though her face hardly moved, she stared at him with a previously reserved intensity, dark eyes reflecting the shifting light from the window. If the servant girl had been defiant, this was nearly treasonous. He sat paralyzed by the passion of it all.

“So you didn’t kill Glossu. That is well. Glossu was bound for his fate, the poor boy. He couldn’t tell a trap if you laid it bare in front of him. There are many lords who meet such ends.

“But you _murdered_ my Feyd-Rautha. Not yet twenty standard, either of you. Hardly more than a schoolyard spat. I’ve read the reports. Read of how you shoved your knife through his jaw to his brain, slipping around in your own blood. It was a good fight. I’m sure you’re quite proud of yourself. After all, you were _eager_ to fight him. Your mother advised against it, I hear, and your woman as well, but you dismissed them. You denied your own men the chance to fight, that’s how much you wanted his blood.

“I can see you sputtering there, about to quote the rules of kanly to me, as if I do not know all the ways you men justify your murderous games. Honor and feuds, justice and mercy. Pick whichever word is nearby and make it suit your purpose. I’m told you have made a science of it, what with your _prescience_. Who can contest your judgement? You’ve gone far past ‘kill a man to save three more’—that’s child’s play. No, no, better to kill six million and shrug and say there was no other way.

“You knew I would refuse this offer, but you didn’t know why. Maybe you thought I would uphold Harkonnen honor, or the opposite, that I could not bear to return to palaces which rejected me. Perhaps you thought I really was an old, frail widow with no interest in politics. But you barely stopped to remember that he was _my son_.”

He coughed on his tea as another wave of visions overwhelmed him. He again saw his mother, eyes aflame, screaming, wailing: _he was my son_.

Other visions came too, ancient memories. A woman named Eleanor in a land known as France, weeping and watching her son pardon his killer with his dying breaths; a woman named Hecuba in a city named Ilium, raising a lament over the body of her favorite son, finally returned to her. A woman named Mary, at the base of a cross, holding her son’s broken body, crowned with thorns. 

He was sick with the grief of a thousand mothers.

He set his tea down and stood.

“Sit. Down.”

He stood still. He was familiar with the Voice; he himself could tune his speaking to control those around him. But there was no Bene Gesserit witchery in this woman’s command, yet he was unable to leave, paralyzed and compelled. He slowly sat back down and waited.

She called the servant girl back, signing some extensive instructions. As the girl took the tea away, they waited for her in silence. When she returned with a simple painted box, the lady cleared her throat, but did not look at him. 

“When you held your son for the last time. Did you know?”

He wanted to shake his head. How could he have known? Who would leave their son, knowing that? But there was so little he did not know. What mentat could claim to have not known that outcome? And he was more than a mentat. He did not respond. 

“I knew,” she said. “It was part of the contract. My son was mine for eighteen months standard, and then he would be a ward of the old Baron. I was not to send the slightest note…” She trailed off, the beginnings of tears in her voice.

She opened the box. Inside the box were papers: clippings of newspaper, folded letters, a number of faded photographs. “He couldn’t send me notes either, of course, but Glossu was fool enough to bring me them.” She brought out a leaf of paper with a messy drawing done in child’s colors of a small boy, a large man and a nondescript woman. It was labeled: “Me”, “Glossu”, “Mama”.

The Lady Rabban was crying now, short sobs racking her body, lips trembling. “Oh, but you hope, don’t you hope? I couldn’t have known, I wouldn’t have done it…”

She picked up paper after paper, glancing at them and placing them on the table. She didn’t need to read them, or look for details. She had memorized each scrap, having looked at them daily, as if a perfect catalogue could bring her son to her. There were stories of his victories in the arena, copied school reports, pictures of him with his brother, or with his teachers. There were no letters in a mature hand.

“Would you have been there, if you could have been? Would you have heard your baby’s screams as the Sardaukar splattered his brains on the stone? Held his cold body to your chest, hoping against hope that he’d begin to breathe again?” She had meant to be cruel, to inflict as much pain as she could, but the spite was undercut by the sincere love and misery with which she looked at the photograph she held: Feyd-Rautha, maybe twelve, in the uniform of the Harkonnen junior guard. “I should have been there,” she whispered. “A witness to his final battle. To die without your mother…”

The memory which came to him now was his own: Feyd-Rautha dead on the floor of the palace, pale in a pool of blood. He could not even recall who had taken his body away. If it had been him, would Jessica have held him in her arms? Would Chani have faithfully preserved every object on his body?

He picked up a random paper from the table. It was a picture of young Feyd, hardly seven, after a training fight. His hair was a mess, his clothes slightly torn. A bruise was forming on his cheek. He was grinning.

He shivered and set the picture down. He stood.

“If you will not take the fief, I will have to regard you as enemy. You are dangerous to me. You will be arrested in the morning and brought to Arrakis to stand trial. You will be found guilty of conspiracy and summarily executed. I am sure you understand.”

“I do.” Her voice was carefully modulated again. The mask of neutrality was returning to her features. She did not stand. What had she to fear from slighting the Emperor? 

His eyes traced over the scene: the poorly-lit room, the pile of papers, the shrinking woman. He wished for something else to say. “Very well. I thank you for your hospitality, Lady Rabban.”

It was still raining when he left the manor house. The townsfolk, all inside now, poked their noses between their curtains to get any glimpse of the strange man. He did not notice. He could hardly see, his vision clouded with prescience and memory, the torrent of rain, and the unfamiliar feeling of his own tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Alexa play "Senza Mamma" from Suor Angelica...
> 
> The inspiration for this came from a conversation with someone whom I hope will become a true friend. Many thanks to her and her enthusiasm; I am regularly inspired and impressed. <3


End file.
